So basically what you're saying is that every piece of content they release has to be unanimously loved by every subscribed player? Oh and no more world events ever again because someone might get their feelings hurt, only instances from now on, staying in town and queuing all day was REALLY saving this game in cata right?

We are FAR from unanimous love obviously. I think theirs a pretty good argument that this whole prodding people into the world thing has left alot of people with a sour taste however. Maybe the developers seem to think the losses are acceptable and they can keep pushing ahead with this crap while people keep leaving. Maybe they don't think casual engagement is a worthy goal. Maybe their pay masters will fire and replace them. Queing all day was far more convenient and far better for alot of the player base though.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

We are FAR from unanimous love obviously. I think theirs a pretty good argument that this whole prodding people into the world thing has left alot of people with a sour taste however. Maybe the developers seem to think the losses are acceptable and they can keep pushing ahead with this crap while people keep leaving. Maybe they don't think casual engagement is a worthy goal. Maybe their pay masters will fire and replace them. Queing all day was far more convenient and far better for alot of the player base though.

I actually agree with instances being better, that being said I have seen countless cases of people complaining that there's not enough to do and that they miss the "good old days" of vanilla. If this is a step in that direction so be it, its throwing a bone to people who like that kind of stuff. Keep in mind that there is an entire raid being released in the patch, I highly doubt that the little doodads and fun npcs they added took up a majority of dev time, I don't really think we are "missing out" on those new dungeons that everyone seems to be wishing for because of these vanity items.

You are telling me not to do it though. Even if it's not implicitly stating it your suggesting that I can walk away from it with no loss. Well when people walk away from it they don't do it and they find out they have less to do. I mean I don't agree that their aren't reprecussions from skipping it, their obviously are especially if your behind on the gear curve and trying to catch up but okay let's say it's true theirs nothing to lose. Okay now what do i do? You've told me I can walk away, I did, isn't that just one more step closer to walking away from the game?

I've got lots of ideas but they've already been expressed. Ultimately the point is that instead of telling players that they can simple ignore all the shit the developers do in the game you ought to be telling the developers to make the content that people want. Not telling players they can easily skip it. If you tell them that they do and then they don't get anything out of that content or that patch. All that development time goes to waste and that isn't the developers intent at all. The developers don't or at least shouldn't want you to feel you can skip their content because why sub then? I mean you've told me not to do it, I'm sorry you have. You haven't done it implicitly but you've coped out and said it's not "mandatory" or totally optional (which is debatable) and that I should feel free to skip it. Well what happens when people take your advice? what do they do in the game?

You can make this argument about anything in the game. I don't see anything wrong with pointing out that the point of the island is to have fun and it is completely optional; it is true. Are you expecting me to lie and say you're obligated to do it? That it's necessary for progression in pvp or pve? I don't really get what kind of response you want.

More than just about any other area we've had in a long time it is optional. Aside from gear that is several tiers behind, all the rewards are fun and silly items and cosmetic. That's the epitomy of optional to me.

But if that's not fun to you, and if there is nothing in the game you find compelling to do without being falsely told it's mandatory, then dont sub. People should play the game because they find it enjoyable not because people mislead them into it being forced content.

It doesn't seem like you have any suggestions for improvement. Although you were taking what I said way too literally (and as some kind of demand rather than a comment to assuage people who aren't interested), it also doesn't sound like you are going to be pleased with it anyway and have no suggestions on what you think should be corrected, so there really isn't any kind of productive dialogue we can have on the topic anyway.

As for what poor behavior I expect all kinds of "world pvp" (basically packs of wolves rolling around ganking left right center) to add a whole lot of frustration to the whole affair. Or even worse members of your own faction, watching you kill a mob in front of a chest, walking right past you and stealing yours. Fantastic. That's just off the top of my head. I imagine the community is filled with far more creative people just ready to grief and harass other players for morbid enjoyment.

I guess I don't understand how this is different than any other non-instanced area on a pvp server. Yes, you're totally right, on a pvp server you may be killed by the opposite faction. Yes, this is true about the island, as with anywhere else in the world. So it sounds like your criticism would be more aptly directed at the server you're playing on than the design of the content itself.

As far as chests: loot them in combat. Or wait until they respawn ~10 seconds after the other guy looted them. Whatever.

Trying hardest, I really can't think of a whole lot of situations for griefing that are unique to this island. If anything, they've made a lot of changes to make the zone more conducive to high populations and cooperative play: all of the rares and most of the elite mobs are shared tap (not even faction unique!), chests are phased and respawn quickly (if they even despawn at all -- many don't), events are done cooperatively, and dangerous mobs like the celestial bosses can no longer be kited nor do damage outside of their area, friendly NPCs can no longer be killed with the Ordos items, etc, etc, etc.

Now that I've transferred to a PvE server, I can enjoy the isle in relative peace, and I'm really looking forward to it-- I've loved being out in the world this expansion, reminds me a lot of Classic and BC.

Can't say I'm impressed with this "non-directed experience" nonsense. It's just the meat of a daily hub, killing and collecting stuff, without the context of a story. I really hope this idea doesn't stick around.

If you have a better idea, let's hear it. It's easy to say "This sucks, this sucks too, this idea also sucks" but not so easy to offer solutions.

Trying hardest, I really can't think of a whole lot of situations for griefing that are unique to this island.

The Ordos-allegiance items give a pretty big cross-faction incentive in the form of a mount reward among other things, if memory serves. 500 Bloody Coins/Player Kills grants what seems to be the most easily attainable Mushan mount in the game (Compared with the Galleon RNG drop chance one and the Brawler's Guild Rank 10 one).

I am sure there may be other incentives too for griefing; but this seems to be the main one. That said, I chose to roll on a PvP server of my own volition and will choose my playtimes accordingly in order to get the most enjoyment/least frustration from this area.

I actually agree with instances being better, that being said I have seen countless cases of people complaining that there's not enough to do and that they miss the "good old days" of vanilla. If this is a step in that direction so be it, its throwing a bone to people who like that kind of stuff. Keep in mind that there is an entire raid being released in the patch, I highly doubt that the little doodads and fun npcs they added took up a majority of dev time, I don't really think we are "missing out" on those new dungeons that everyone seems to be wishing for because of these vanity items.

Those people who complain got their wish this expansion. so much more was offered for them to do and we lost 4 million players. Throwing a bone to those people isn't necessary anyway, they bitch and complain but the reality is they are so hopelessly addicted they simple do the content over and over again on alts.

You are correct the raid took up the majority of time but the island itself didn't just appear. It's more than just some doodads and fun npcs, it's a whole outdoor environments. We are missing out on new dungeons in favor of this crap and in favor of huge raid bloated raid tiers.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

I think IoT was too daily heavy myself, and prefer the Timeless Isle approach a little more, but it probably could benefit from at least a few more directed tasks; a daily or two. But not too much. :\

FWIW, there are some specific directed tasks you go to the island for -- your cloak, celestial tournament, world boss, etc. And there are a few quests there, including one lore-based daily. But yeah, it's largely a very open ended zone - a place you go for killing rares and hunting treasure and exploring and doing special "events."

Use that tech they showed us on IoT. Let us pick between, say, a set of PvP objectives, a large number of easy dailies, a small number of challenging dailies or a single big weekly. Since they would be mutually exclusive we could get the same amount of rep/vp/gold/etc. at the end but be able to choose which based on our personal preferences, gear and skill level.

It's terrible as catch up. It's terrible as an alternative to anything. It's simple just fucking bad content. Telling people not to do it doesn't make it less bad content, it simple leaves people out of that content.

Not for nothing, but who the hell are you to tell people what to do and what not to do? How about you just simply state whether you like it or not and why, and let people experience it for themselves and make their own decisions?

The worst thing that can happen is someone reads your post and decides not to do it because you happen to think it's terrible, when it would have ended up being something that they might have enjoyed. You're not that important to be ordering anyone to do or not do anything.

The Ordos-allegiance items give a pretty big cross-faction incentive in the form of a mount reward among other things, if memory serves. 500 Bloody Coins/Player Kills grants what seems to be the most easily attainable Mushan mount in the game (Compared with the Galleon RNG drop chance one and the Brawler's Guild Rank 10 one).

I guess I never really thought of killing high level players on a pvp realm as griefing. But I also kinda thought people missed world pvp; they complain about it here and on the official forums quite a lot, and it seems like a good way to encourage it in a more enjoyable context (level 90 players vs level 90 players rather than destroying quest hubs or ganking low level players). It doesn't seem particularly griefy to me since you are all same level and on equal grounds.

But yeah, I guess if that's how people define it, then yes. Those items definitely do encourage pvp. I still feel that complaint would be more squarely lodged against the server type though than the design of the island, but I guess that's me.

I guess I never really thought of killing high level players on a pvp realm as griefing. But I also kinda thought people missed world pvp; they complain about it here and on the official forums quite a lot, and it seems like a good way to encourage it in a more enjoyable context (level 90 players vs level 90 players rather than destroying quest hubs or ganking low level players). It doesn't seem particularly griefy to me since you are all same level and on equal grounds.

But yeah, I guess if that's how people define it, then yes. Those items definitely do encourage pvp. I still feel that complaint would be more squarely lodged against the server type though than the design of the island, but I guess that's me.

I've always considered the whole issue of PvP a bit of a paradox myself. As i've always said; it's World PvP if you're the one doing the killing, and ganking when you're the one getting killed. My presence on a PvP realm was not for either of these things; although I freely accept that in choosing to be on that realm, I generally forfeit my right to complain when being killed by others.

Generally speaking I can just see guilds/friends making an evening out of letting one player/friend kill them all in the pursuit of these Bloody Coins; but it'll be interesting how the island works out in reality. I fully intend to avoid 90% of the drama/competition in doing stuff after midnight anyway.

The problem with telling people not to do something is that they often take your advice and don't do it. When the developers spend all that time making that content they obviously want you to do it to keep you entertained. If your not entertained your more likely to leave. I don't get this desire on the part of the community to tell other members of the community not to do something instead of asking the developers to do a better job of making attractive content. I mean okay keep telling players not to do things but don't be surprised when players keep leaving...

I agree with this. People saying "then don't play" need to think about that for a while. Because that's why subscribers are leaving. The devs need to know what the community thinks

You can make this argument about anything in the game. I don't see anything wrong with pointing out that the point of the island is to have fun and it is completely optional; it is true. Are you expecting me to lie and say you're obligated to do it? That it's necessary for progression in pvp or pve? I don't really get what kind of response you want.

More than just about any other area we've had in a long time it is optional. Aside from gear that is several tiers behind, all the rewards are fun and silly items and cosmetic. That's the epitomy of optional to me.

But if that's not fun to you, and if there is nothing in the game you find compelling to do without being falsely told it's mandatory, then dont sub. People should play the game because they find it enjoyable not because people mislead them into it being forced content.

It doesn't seem like you have any suggestions for improvement. Although you were taking what I said way too literally (and as some kind of demand rather than a comment to assuage people who aren't interested), it also doesn't sound like you are going to be pleased with it anyway and have no suggestions on what you think should be corrected, so there really isn't any kind of productive dialogue we can have on the topic anyway.

I guess I don't understand how this is different than any other non-instanced area on a pvp server. Yes, you're totally right, on a pvp server you may be killed by the opposite faction. Yes, this is true about the island, as with anywhere else in the world. So it sounds like your criticism would be more aptly directed at the server you're playing on than the design of the content itself.

As far as chests: loot them in combat. Or wait until they respawn ~10 seconds after the other guy looted them. Whatever.

Trying hardest, I really can't think of a whole lot of situations for griefing that are unique to this island. If anything, they've made a lot of changes to make the zone more conducive to high populations and cooperative play: all of the rares and most of the elite mobs are shared tap (not even faction unique!), chests are phased and respawn quickly (if they even despawn at all -- many don't), events are done cooperatively, and dangerous mobs like the celestial bosses can no longer be kited nor do damage outside of their area, friendly NPCs can no longer be killed with the Ordos items, etc, etc, etc.

Honestly theirs nothing you can say, you should however stop spreading the whole optional bullshit. I mean it's clear it's not for anybody wanting to do catch up but it's also just not true in principle. Cata had LOTS of actually optional content and people STILL complained about being bored.. and that was ACTUALLY optional content without the compulsion of gear behind it. If it was ACTUALLY optional theirs a chance lots of you would skip it and then all the development time would be wasted. Ultimately telling people not to sub is the correct response though. I'm glad you said it. Lot's of people are electing that OPTION (and that is the ultimate OPTION) and instead of telling the developers look this is what's wrong with what your doing your just telling players don't do it man and don't sub. Well like I said unsubbing is an option for you and me, for the developers (and future of the game) it's a rather piss poor one.

My suggestion for improvement is to basically abandon the whole "compelling" out door world content or at least not make that every patch. Why not dungeons instead of an island this time?

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Pizza the Hutt

Not for nothing, but who the hell are you to tell people what to do and what not to do? How about you just simply state whether you like it or not and why, and let people experience it for themselves and make their own decisions?

The worst thing that can happen is someone reads your post and decides not to do it because you happen to think it's terrible, when it would have ended up being something that they might have enjoyed. You're not that important to be ordering anyone to do or not do anything.

Really? I mean they'll read my post that just gives a criticism of it and not do it but all you people telling them they can walk away from doing it well that won't have any impact at all? I don't get it.. I just don't...

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

I'd like the idea of Timeless Isle a lot more if it was more relevant with the actual storyline of the patch. It could have been a sea fortress built by Garrosh that we have to take over or something. Although the idea behind the Timewalkers is somewhat interesting, the whole thing still feels disconnected at the moment.

I agree with this. People saying "then don't play" need to think about that for a while. Because that's why subscribers are leaving. The devs need to know what the community thinks

It's insanity. I mean who developes software with the goal or mindset of not using it. Who tells their customer base we made all this crap but feel free to ignore it and not do it. You should do the opposite. You should make content that people want to do and want to consume. Not make shit that people will bitch about and dislike and then say don't do it folks because your just wasting your time and money at that point.

In the same fashion simple saying just unsub is an okay response on forums but pretty shitty for the developers and the future of the game. Okay well yea unsub people that's exactly what you should do if you find this crap unappealing but I don't get how that helps the future of the game or the content being developed. In the same way telling people not to do it or telling them they can walk away (and they have been) basically leads to them doing exactly that, walking away. It's not a question of optional and forced or mandatory, it's a question of entertainment. If someone isn't entertained by content, telling them to unsub or to skip the content doesn't fix the fact that content isn't entertaining. At some point if enough folks leave and or complain then maybe the content is the problem.

Last edited by Glorious Leader; 2013-08-06 at 11:09 PM.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

As for what poor behavior I expect all kinds of "world pvp" (basically packs of wolves rolling around ganking left right center) to add a whole lot of frustration to the whole affair. Or even worse members of your own faction, watching you kill a mob in front of a chest, walking right past you and stealing yours. Fantastic. That's just off the top of my head. I imagine the community is filled with far more creative people just ready to grief and harass other players for morbid enjoyment.

So how is that different from, let's say...the last 8 years of content this game put out? Farming twilight documents? Ganked. Herbing in Azshara? Ganked. Questing in IQD? Mega ganked. Argent tourney? Ganked outside the grounds. (and now it's round 2 with people camping for scourged whelplings) Firelands dailies? Ganked. etc etc etc until the present day.

SO, how is Timeless Isle different from the rest of the game in this regard? You want level 95 guards to magically appear every time someone wrongs you on a pvp server? That's what pvp servers are for, attacking other players whenever the hell you want. Gtfo and switch to pve.

Q: Where the fuck is Xia Xia, SIU?!?!
A1: She needs to start making eggs for Easter...
A2: Drunk and sleeping somewhere.

So how is that different from, let's say...the last 8 years of content this game put out? Farming twilight documents? Ganked. Herbing in Azshara? Ganked. Questing in IQD? Mega ganked. Argent tourney? Ganked outside the grounds. (and now it's round 2 with people camping for scourged whelplings) Firelands dailies? Ganked. etc etc etc until the present day.

SO, how is Timeless Isle different from the rest of the game in this regard? You want level 95 guards to magically appear every time someone wrongs you on a pvp server? That's what pvp servers are for, attacking other players whenever the hell you want. Gtfo and switch to pve.

And when all or enough players switch to pve realms what happens to those pvp realms? Or better yet when people refuse to pay the money for a transfer what happens then? I mean every solution that is always offered is never what the developers can and should do it's always focused on the player end. Well when you do that the player can (and is and will) walk away.

The hammer comes down:

Originally Posted by Osmeric

Normal should be reduced in difficulty. Heroic should be reduced in difficulty.
And the tiny fraction for whom heroic raids are currently well tuned? Too bad,so sad! With the arterial bleed of subs the fastest it's ever been, the vanity development that gives you guys your own content is no longer supportable.

And when all or enough players switch to pve realms what happens to those pvp realms? Or better yet when people refuse to pay the money for a transfer what happens then? I mean every solution that is always offered is never what the developers can and should do it's always focused on the player end. Well when you do that the player can (and is and will) walk away.

I imagine those pvp realms would become coalesced if they are low pop enough, and the players that remain on them can continue enjoying them the way they are supposed to be. The developers don't have to do shit about it, they are the ones who developed the ruleset and the players AGREED to play by those rules. I started playing on pvp realms because that's where my friends were, and I understood full well the pros and cons of the server type going in. I still have yet to gank a single player out of spite (revenge for getting ganked is a different story of course), and I have been ganked and camped countless times. Grab some friends and get revenge, it's an MMO ffs, there are other people around.

Q: Where the fuck is Xia Xia, SIU?!?!
A1: She needs to start making eggs for Easter...
A2: Drunk and sleeping somewhere.